Marinetti addressed the “death” of traditional art in his Futurist Manifesto of 1909 when he stated “Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.” Marinetti, among with artists of the Futurist, Vorticist and Constructivist movements of the 20th century, believed that mechanisation was fundamental to creating a new future where machines played a vital role in modern society. The traditional style of painting and sculpture — in accordance to Futurist principles — had no place in this new future. In this adapt-or-die situation, many artists such as Umberto Boccioni and Jacob …show more content…
Two works by Jacob Epstein, The Rock Drill and Torso in Metal from ‘The Rock Drill’ indicate how the glorification of machines evolved into contempt after the events of the First World War and how mechanisation shaped the outcome of these works. Machines were seen to be the epitome of all beauty by more than just Marinetti and his fellow Futurist colleagues; it appeared as if the entire world was becoming enamoured with the machine. However, despite the majority being obsessed with mechanical beauty, Epstein in The Rock Drill (1913-15) showed another side to mechanisation; a brutal and barbaric side that was expressed through a creature he described himself as being “the terrible Frankenstein’s monster we have made ourselves into” (Silber, 1986 32). This wasn’t Epstein’s intention when he created The Rock Drill (1913-15), as he embarked on the sculpture with the idea that it was to become a representation of the modern man in his most heroic form; exulting his power, victorious, above his beloved machine. Much like Marinetti, Epstein made grand assumptions about war before the First World War had begun, yet after seeing the devastation that the war had brought Europe, Epstein was horrified with his own